I’m on a definite high at the moment – not literally, that would shweet – but am still bouncing around from the weekend, greatly anticipating getting to Cape Town on Wednesday night for more festivities.
Some of us are packing into our Cape Town flat, always festive, because location-wise it’s pretty much on Kloof Street.
On Cape Town, I’m rather fucking amped with my varsity. They’ve put my book in their library.
Now that’s fucking cool, not to mention completely unexpected, let’s be honest.
UCT, it may not be the literary work of Hemingway (but when would Hemingway talk about sex, dildo’s and relationships anyway? That wasn’t his bag. Hell, could be wrong. Maybe he did after a few whiskeys, but you get my point), but UCT – I love you.
What, pray, will my book teach your students? (Maybe what’s in store for when they leave?) The whole idea makes me giggle like Soli Philander on a papsak.
Of course, UCT gave me more than just an edumacashun. It introduced me to soft recreational activities and stimulants, breaking into public pools and skinny dipping, or just running into Camps Bay naked during a 21st tour bus party.
It gave me grand exposure to arts students, history, literature and ideas.
I studied an Arts degree, so most of my classes were girls, with a small handful of dudes who all hippied it up something chronic, or otherwise had interesting hair.
One dude wore a dress sometimes.
I sat behind him in an exam once. He was chilled.
It gave me res food and Budget Rolls. Those minging things you’d get for lunch with the tokens your res gave you. Chicken mayo, always with a pinch of fly.
It gave me dental procedures.
It gave me the ability to stumble back from Barney’s, a drinking hole in Rondebosch, after an exam, punished on Crackling and/or R2 tequila shots, where me and a mate decided to zyphe the red and white traffic tape running along the side of a ditch.
We stole 3000 metres of the stuff.
We thought we were the fucken champions of the decade.
And we were, quite frankly.
We dragged this bundle of tape, and a stray cone, back to the boys res that faced us, and dumped it in a mate’s room.
Giggling and pissed we thought it would make a very nice beanbag for his quarters.
And the cone, an excellent hat.
It, however, got stuck between the first and seventh floor, due to the two rotating doors and dodgy lift. So for weeks later, there was this tape, going up and down in that lift, stuck in the gap and in the rotating doors.
We were the Legends Of The Tape.
It gave me lectures that were flexible enough that I could sort my timetable around my beach time. So for one year, I had no Friday lectures – and I’d chill with the rest of the BA’s on Clifton, tanning my rear end.
It gave me Sunday evenings at La Med.
It gave me the beauties of student living. Where inflatable furniture made up most of the seating arrangements in our living room.
Where my car wouldn’t start when it was raining.
Where if someone ate someone else’s peanut butter, it was a big deal.
Where digs parties and braais left the aftermath of visible debauchery in its wake, with passed out humans and alcoholic detritus strewn about the place, some comprising naked strangers.
It gave me Romano, the dude who was painting our digs. Who turned out to be an escapee from Valkenberg Mental Hospital. And would rock up, fucked on meths that he’d soaked through bread to scream at us or otherwise use our outdoor toilet.
(He did that once. He broke into the garden, and fully just chilled out in the back yard shitter. Until we found him and had to call Valkenberg. Again.)
Stealing roadsigns in the dead of night, which would later be used for general house décor.
Writing essays to deadlines, filming short films, scraping money together for a Jammie Shuttle, waitressing and dropping two drinks on a dude’s crotch twice in 20 minutes, teaching hyperactive kiddie spawn French at the Montessori School, doing crazy ass no-responsibility working at ski resorts, backpacking around Mozambique and endless parties.
It gave me the most beautiful city to study in.
It gave me some pretty darn awesome mates.
It gave me varsity old faithfuls, like selling rag magazines, 21st’s and formals. Sax Appealgate aside – selling rag magazines where we all passed out in someone’s boot on the lot the cathedral on the corner of Roeland Street, and Jeremy Maggs wouldn’t buy one from us.
In my year, it had a nude centrefold of Thabo Mbeki, if I remember correctly.
Kinky.
So although it is le pique of controversy at the moment, hey, I had a great time. Running around like a hooligan and stuffing it into people’s car windows. I wore a satin dressing gown with condoms printed all over it, and didn’t batter an eyelid.
Whatever. Those were the days, and I do realise how unbelievably lucky I was to have had them. So thanks, UCT.
It must be said though – that Monday evenings do leave me on a high as well. Seriously.
For one, Monday, the day, is over. It’s Idols and Grey’s, it’s the night I get to have Peas Alone time, a long hot soak, and other sundry.
From now on, I’m claiming Monday. Unless Prince William is getting married, and I crack an invite, and it happens to be on a Monday, Mondays are my nights.
My non-event, ‘let’s-listen-to-horrendous-music-that-only-I’m-subjected-to’ night.
